{"id":2407,"date":"2019-06-05T08:43:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T08:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=2407"},"modified":"2019-06-05T08:46:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T08:46:46","slug":"conference-report-romantic-interactions-krakow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=2407","title":{"rendered":"Conference Report: ‘Romantic Interactions’, Krakow"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following report is by Charlotte May (University of Nottingham).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Romantic Interactions\u2019 Conference<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jagiellonian University in Krakow<\/strong><\/p>\n

4th<\/sup>and 5th\u00a0<\/sup>April 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u2018Romantic Interactions\u2019 conference at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow interrogated two key definitions of interaction: firstly, social, artistic and literary interactions in the Romantic period itself; and secondly, how readers, audiences and writers have interacted with the Romantic period through different mediums over the past two hundred years.<\/p>\n

The conference opened with the first plenary lecture delivered by Mary Jacobus, exploring \u2018Keats\u2019 Apollonian Afterlives\u2019. The afternoon included panels on German Romanticism, the Classical Tradition, Cross-cultural and Transatlantic Interactions, and Negative Capability and Poetic Imagination. Brittany Pladek (Marquette University) provided one of many fantastic insights into how we might trace the reception of classical tradition in the Romantic period in the current political climate, including how responses to the #MeToo movement could be found in constructions of guilt in the epic tradition. Keats was very much on the mind of participants in the later afternoon session, with discussions on negative capability heavily influenced by Mary Jacobus\u2019s plenary lecture earlier that day.<\/p>\n

The day ended with a wonderful conference dinner at Kawaleria restaurant in Krakow. As Keats had been the focus of many conversations, and Byron had only formed the basis of one paper (Rowland Cotterill\u2019s investigation of Don Juan <\/em>as a Horatian poem), I posed one question to the dinner attendees: Byron or Keats? Without any context provided, the question proved easier to answer over a glass of wine, and we found that Byron was indeed the winner (although Juliette Wells\u2019 response was, of course, Jane Austen).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

(c) Newstead Abbey; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

(c) National Portrait Gallery<\/p><\/div>\n

The second and final day of the conference opened with an investigation of philosophical and religious interactions and Romanticism across Borders, in which Judith Thompson\u2019s (Dalhousie University) discussion of John Thelwall as a \u2018Citizen of the World\u2019 reminded us of absences arising in interactions, and how much we – as historians and critics – must pursue studies of those who have been excluded from contemporary canons, as well as continue to hunt for evidence of interactions.<\/p>\n

The day contained two plenary panels before lunch, covering how poets contemporaneously interacted with each other and how the public have been pursuing interaction with Romanticism since the end of the movement (if such an \u2018end\u2019 can indeed be agreed upon). Frederick Burwick (UCLA) spoke on \u2018Coleridge\u2019s Interaction with Wordsworth: The \u2018Dejection\u2019 Dialogue\u2019, and Juliette Wells (Goucher College) focused on \u2018William Dean Howells and the Rise of American Janeitism\u2019. \u00a0As previous panels had done, this plenary was an important contribution to questioning the role of national identity within Romanticism and its legacy, and truly proved how the cult of personality and literary tastes could change the course of global literary history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The conference ended with Nicola Watson (Open University) taking us on a tour of R\u1ec6VE (Romantic Europe: The Virtual Exhibition)<\/a>, an invaluable resource on how Romanticism has been defined and charted since its beginnings in the eighteenth\u00a0century to the present day. Watson provided us with the example of \u2018Shakespeare\u2019s chair and the Polish Princess\u2019, \u00a0Monika Coghen (our wonderful host at Jagiellonian University) spoke on \u2018Ko\u015bciuszko\u2019s Mound\u2019, and Miros\u026bawa Modrzewska (University of Gda\u0144sk) joined us on Skype to speak about \u2018Chopin\u2019s Piano\u2019, three important contributions to the visual exhibition. The conference ended with a rendition of the selected works of Frederick Chopin told through the chronology of Chopin\u2019s interactions with his Scottish patron Jane Stirling by Marcin Jaroszek, accompanied by the wonderful pianist Anna D\u0119bowska. This recovery of Stirling as a supporter and driving-force of Chopin\u2019s career showed how instrumental sociability was in the development of artistic careers and the movement of Romanticism itself. The essential role of women in founding and sculpting the movement of Romanticism had been referred to throughout the conference, particularly in the papers of Vitana Kostadinova (University of Plovdiv), Anna Messing (another of our fantastic hosts), Julie Donovan (George Washington University), and Rayna Rosenova (Sofia University).<\/p>\n

This conference showcased up and coming work and projects which will further our understanding and definitions of what it means for an author, text, and literary period to interact. The atmosphere of the conference was friendly and supportive, with scholars from different careers and sectors engaging with a truly international body of delegates. There is surely no better legacy of interactions with(in) Romanticism than a conference such as this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Charlotte May (University of Nottingham)<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following report is by Charlotte May (University of Nottingham). \u2018Romantic Interactions\u2019 Conference Jagiellonian University in Krakow 4thand 5th\u00a0April 2019 The \u2018Romantic Interactions\u2019 conference at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[16,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2407"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2413,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407\/revisions\/2413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}